JCC event shows that all bodies can dance

Participants at the MNJCC’s Invitation to Dance event March 22 take part in a mixed abilities dance party. JODIE SHUPAC photo

After a car accident in her early 20s left her disabled, Simi Linton, an American activist, author and speaker now in her 60s, came to the realization that it was not so much the wheelchair she rode that was disabling, but the environment around her.

This awareness spurred Linton’s decades-long fight for greater societal inclusion of people with disabilities, be it through municipal infrastructure, better design of public and private institutions or opening up spaces within the arts, such as dance. The effort is chronicled in the 2014 documentary Invitation to Dance, which Linton co-produced with Christian Von Tippelskirch.

The film also delves into Linton’s rediscovery of dance as an expression of joy and sexuality after initially assuming her disabled body didn’t belong on a dance floor. 

It features performance shots of an American mixed-abilities dance troupe whose members have a variety of body types, including those who use, and dance, in wheelchairs.  

The film and an ensuing panel discussion were part of a March 22 event at the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre (MNJCC), hosted in partnership with the Ryerson School of Disabilities Studies and Tangled Art + Disability, a non-profit dedicated to enhancing opportunities for artists with disabilities.

The event, which concluded with a mixed abilities dance party, highlighted a new MNJCC push to be more accessible and inclusive. As part of this effort, Liviya Mendelsohn was hired last September as the MNJCC’s accessibility and inclusion co-ordinator.

Mendelsohn said she hoped Invitation to Dance would serve as a catalyst for viewers to talk about accessibility generally and as it pertains to the arts world. 

Several years ago, Mendelsohn explained, the MNJCC began to talk more seriously about inclusion and conducted a needs assessment to see “who was in the building, who felt included, who wanted to be here but wasn’t, and what barriers they faced.”

After finding there were people in the community who weren’t being adequately supporting, the MNJCC applied for a Trillium grant that allowed it to hire Mendelsohn and undertake further inclusivity measures. 

“We’re doing everything from building capacity through staff training, outreach and listening to people with disabilities and their families about what their needs are,” she said. 

Outreach has extended to all areas of the JCC, Mendelsohn noted, and developments have included an accessible yoga class and partnerships both current and upcoming with groups such as the Ontario Basketball Association and the Down Syndrome Association of Toronto to make sports and swimming more inclusive.

The centre also recently partnered with UJA Federation of Greater Toronto’s Itanu Toronto inclusion initiative to run an educational workshop on inclusiveness for 40 Jewish communal leaders, including rabbis, day school teachers and laypeople.  

After the film, the 60 or so attendees – many of whom used wheelchairs – listened to panelists Nicole Meehan, a dancer and a student at the Ryerson School of Disability Studies, Catherine McKinnon, co-founder and festival director of the Toronto International Deaf Film and Arts Festival and Mark Brose, a wheelchair dancer. 

The discussion, moderated by Eliza Chandler, a postdoctoral fellow at the Ryerson School of Disability Studies and artistic director at Tangled Art + Disability, looked at dance as a vehicle for disability activism, as well as representations of disabled people in places the screen and stage and government support for artists with disabilities. 

“Dance is a subtle and non-aggressive way of advocating for disability rights,” Meehan said. 

Brose, who said he had to give up a career as a goldsmith after developing multiple sclerosis, said dancing on stage has been a wonderful way to recover his sense of self-expression. 

He noted that the Ontario Arts Council recently announced that it will be offering funding options for deaf and disabled artists.

McKnnon touched on the importance of people with disabilities being better represented in the arts scene.

“We need to advocate more to be included… [For example], it’s important as a deaf community to show films where people are signing.”

Several audience members shared their experiences of working as freelance, disabled artists and struggling to obtain grants while on the Ontario Disability Support Program. 

The event concluded with a lively, free-form dance party with DJ Layah Jane. 

Though the event’s content did not focus on the Jewish community, Mendelsohn said she would encourage anyone in the community who is planning or designing an event or program to “ask everyone what their needs are what you can contribute around that.”

“Inclusion is a deeply Jewish value,” she said.